Streaming Tight Ends: Week 6 Fantasy Football Targets

A proud alumna of the UGA Grady College of Journalism, Jennifer Eakins has been working in the sports industry for well over a decade. She has had stints with CNN Sports, the Atlanta Hawks and the Colorado Rockies. Her first fantasy football draft took place in 1996 where she selected Ricky Watters with the first overall pick, and she has been a fantasy degenerate ever since.

We’ve reached Week 6 of the NFL season, and it’s time to evaluate your roster choices and gauge if the TE you drafted is worthy of starting this week, or if you’re better off hitting the waiver wire in search of a better option. If you purposely approached drafting the TE position with the intention of streaming weekly, I’ve got you covered there, as well. As a strategy, streaming aims to find players with above average matchups, which can hopefully translate to TE1 production for your fantasy squad.

The main focus of our research when looking at a TE’s matchup is 4for4’s Schedule-Adjusted Fantasy Points Allowed (aFPA) metric. As the season continues to progress and more data is available, aFPA becomes more and more reliable, using rolling 10-week data. Targets and efficiency metrics are also considered when coming up with weekly TE streamers.

The goal in streaming is to roster a player that is going to return TE1 fantasy points and Week 4 was filled with stars and scrubs. My best streamer was Ed Dickson, as TE1 on the week with 22.5 PPR points, followed by Cameron Brate with 17.8, and Austin Seferian-Jenkins with 14.9. My scrubs were Jared Cook with a measly 3.5 PPR points and Evan Engram with a large goose egg. After five weeks of football, 4for4 streaming candidates are averaging 9.8 PPR fantasy points per game, which currently ranks as TE8. The optimal TE streamer has 98.6 PPR fantasy points, enough for TE1 on the season thus far. On to Week 6 and the players who can bail you out of a bad draft choice, fill in for a player on bye, or simply provide the weekly streaming points you crave.

In order to provide advice that you can actually implement, candidates for streaming must be available in at least 40% of Yahoo fantasy leagues.

I have been banging the drum for ASJ since mid-summer and I’m certainly not stopping now. Since returning from suspension, the Jets’ TE has scored 31.6 PPR points, enough for TE9 over the past three games. He’s also been the most targeted member of the Jets’ offense in that same timeframe, with a total of 18. Sure, their opponent was the Browns, but the Jets put together a nice game offensively in Week 5, with Jermaine Kearse, Josh McCown, and ASJ all posting double-digit fantasy points.

They’ll be looking to keep it rolling on Sunday when the Patriots come to town, and attempt to increase their record to 4-2. New England’s DST has struggled at times this season, currently ranked 28th versus opposing TEs with an aFPA of 16 PPR points. Owning the TE role for New York, we should see quite a bit of ASJ in Week 6, as the Jets will want to expose any weakness their fellow AFC East rival Patriots possibly have. For now, he’s available in 72% of Yahoo leagues, so grab him while you still can.

Continue reading for three more streaming options and three deep league candidates...